Well said, Israel. I expressed similar views in my own
comments to Engdahl's critical review of Wikileaks.

From Frank Scott

Thank you Israel for providing the most sensible, critical
and even handed analysis yet available of the wikileaks story. But the
conspiratorial mindset will not accept anything that does not fit within the
parameters of non-systemic machinations of individuals, groups or cults - the
illuminati, elders of zion, or much closer to reality bilderbergs or spy
networks - which operate in a social vacuum unconnected to political economics
but act as extensions of identity group politics - the kind of system supporting
divisions we deal with when placed in ethnic-religious-sexual-racial-tribal
categories that invite continued rule by wealthy minorities who might as well be
divine-satanic-ethereal entities for all the substantial opposition they will
ever get from such divided forces...

western invented and inspired dualism - which must be overcome if we are ever
to become a human race - has a sort of good side in that so many are so
disgusted with the rulers of the world that they believe almost nothing those
rulers tell them...of course the bad side is that they often run helter skelter
after any concept-story-idea-fable that fits the story of evil rulers hell bent
on destroying the world...

but a division between bad and not quite as bad is too close to what passes for
democracy, when people vote for lesser evil...we still end up with bad, or
evil...that's the horror of dualism and the problem we must solve by ridding
ourselves of the west's philosophic banishment of anything existing between
extremes...we are supposedly stuck with one or the other, and we will remain so
as long as we continue acting out individualist behaviors and denying social
realities...

fs

From Joe Quinn, editor sott.net

Dear Israel,

you title your last missive "Wikileaks - The Real Stuff", yet you fail to point
to anything "real" or valuable in the Wikileaks documents. Can you point to any
detail, either within the documents or within those documents that have been
published by the mainstream media that was not already publicly available?
Alternatively, can you point to some evidence that the release of the documents
has in some way effected a sea-change in the general public opinion of the US
misadventure in Afghanistan? I ask this because, such is the hype surrounding
the release of the documents, I think we are all justified in expecting 'big
things' as a result.

I don't doubt that the coverage of the Wikileaks documents by the mainstream
media gives extra weight to the long-established truth (as purveyed most notably
by the alternative news sites) that civilians are being murdered in Afghanistan,
but the precise number of dead is all important, as is where to lay the blame.

The UK Guardian newspaper has taken the lead in the dissemination of the
Wikileaks documents. I would like you to look at
this article, if you have not already done so. It is the main story that
appeared in the Guardian announcing the documents.

Were you shocked Israel? "Hundreds" killed by coalition
troops! The true figure is over 30,000 Afghan civilians killed as a result of
the US invasion.

How many average US or European citizens do you think will be shocked by the
claim that a "covert unit hunts" those evil Tailban leaders? Is this meant to be
a shocking exposé?

And what are we to make of the "steep rise in Taliban attacks on NATO"? Is this
meant to elicit a "poor NATO" response from readers?

But I admit, some people are strong-willed, and read further than the bullet
points of an article, and at least get to the end of the first paragraph where,
in the case of the Guardian exposé, the public is treated to a further data
point:

Do you find that interesting Israel? Suspicious even? Is it possible that a
reasonable person could make a tenuous link between the hint that Iran is
involved in the increased attacks on US troops in Afghanistan and the incessant
sabre-rattling from both the US and Israel over a threatened attack on Iran?

But we could read on a little further and learn that:

"the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive
escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000
civilians to date."

So we see that the 'Taliban" are to blame for the lion's
share of civilian deaths, while "coalition forces", we are told, are responsible
for "at least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded,
in total"

At least we understand who the real murderers in Afghanistan are.

On the Guardian's interactive war-logs page, we are treated to a cornucopia of
videos and flash pages, all very pleasing to eye but none providing any more
substance than that written in black and white print. The emphasis on Iran and
Pakistan as the real problem is hard to miss. In an editorial entitled:
Afghanistan war logs: the unvarnished picture

we are informed that:

"In these documents, Iran's and Pakistan's intelligence
agencies run riot. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is linked to
some of the war's most notorious commanders. The ISI is alleged to have sent
1,000 motorbikes to the warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani for suicide attacks in Khost
and Logar provinces"

Are you getting the picture yet Israel?

Under "latest news" in the 'War logs' section, the Guardian
reports what you mention in your defence of wikileaks, that, Reporters
Without Borders has accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of 'incredible
irresponsibility' over the leaked documents.

The accusation is inane and baseless, as you note, but I am more interested in
how this attack on Assange (and indirectly on the Guardian for publishing the
documents), serves to convince an increasingly disgruntled public that these
documents, and the Guardian's analysis of them, are the 'real deal'. I have
sifted through the 92,000 documents, and based on the details therein, I agree
with the Guardian's analysis of their overall message - Iran and Pakistan and
the Taliban are evil and responsible for most of the deaths in Afghanistan. For
sure, US troops are trigger happy at times, but who can blame them? War is hell
after all!

Do you agree with this assessment of the causes of the problems facing
Afghanistan and the Afghan people today? More importantly, is the general public
now more convinced that this perspective is the real one because it comes from
alleged 'secret documents'?

I am not convinced that we are dealing with some grand conspiracy to deceive the
public that includes Wikileaks, Reporters without borders, the CIA, the White
House, the Pentagon and the Guardian etc. because it is not necessary. If we
simply take the US national security state apparatus, the US military command
structure, the illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign S.E. Asian state,
throw in some for-profit newspapers and a well-meaning,
somewhat naive and impressionable 29-year old hacker, and a public starving
for something real but who must be kept on a diet of half-truths and hollow
hopes, we have all the ingredients we need for a controversial issue. The result
can look like a conspiracy, when in fact it is just another day's news in the
'mixtus orbis' that is 2010 planet earth - that is to say, the unfiltered Truth
is seldom seen, and increasingly, in these increasingly desperate times, when it
does chance to poke its head above the parapet, it very often treads on the toes
of those emotionally invested in the idea that there can be any real positive
change in our world without the conscious, active participation of all, or at
least a majority.

You also seem to believe that Osama bin laden really was the mastermind behind
the 9/11 attacks. Is this the case?

Shamir replies: Dear Joe,
probably we’ll have to work hard to achieve ‘sea-change’ you and I wish to have.
Wikileaks is just one of the tools, not a magic wand. Did they deliver some
impressive news? Yes. The US pays in cash to Iraqi and Afghani media for
positive coverage. For journalists this is important news. They released
hundreds of names of the US agents. The hit squad is not to be pooh-poohed,
either. It was never published in the US, only in the UK and Germany. Wikileaks
Afghan stuff is raw data, it has to be processed to become acceptable. The bias,
as I’ve said, is that of newspapers that process, but you can also process the
stuff if you are willing. Julian Assange is definitely not 29-year old somewhat
naïve hacker – he is 39 and quite astute. And your question about Osama, I
presume is facile – my view was expressed on September 12, 2001 in the piece
called Orient Express
http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Orient_Express.htm

I was trying to be as honest as possible. I have no absolute
proof that Israel is paying the bills for Assange. However, there is more than
reasonable evidence that the articles released were carefully gleened.

Most of the docs were not military but from private
contractors. The primary private contractors are BW/Xe and Dyncorp. Most of
the intel reports come from BW/Xe. I have the misfortune of living, for many
years, in the small town as Eric Prinz and the real controller at BW, Richard
DeVos of the Amway cult. These are the primary American financiers of both the
neo-con political movement and Christian Zionism.

DeVos is the largest contributor to the Republican Party, a
former gubernatorial candidate and someone I lived next door to for 15 years.

Intelligence operations were "outsourced" to control output.

As a military contractor, I have direct personal access to,
not only the BW intel personnel but all intel personnel that return from the
region. I am also part of the Afghanistan "working group" and primary author of
the Pentagon's "White Paper" on Afghanistan.

An honest assessment of raw intel output from Afghanistan
would have had these things:

Corruption
related to Karzai supporters covers most of the documents, hundreds of
thousands of pages....not one was leaked

Extensive
secret operations in Baluchistan, involving the drug trade, Jindallah and
including Israeli, British and Indian intelligence is second. Not one page
was released.

Money
laundering operations, involving American and Pakistani government officials
and the entire Likud party were omitted. This is hot stuff....and very well
documented...and very classified.

The
influence of former Communists in Afghanistan was not mentioned, something
now seen as a threat and something that is covered in thousands of pages of
intel reports.

I have
seen the intel reports on the Indian "consulates" that indicate that 200
terrorist trainers are operating in Afghanistan. The ISI reports say 2000.
Not one word is mentioned on this.

Of a
higher level of classification, many USAID employees are suspected of
involvement in drug trade. Camp Campbell, where the "CIA attack" occurred
was totally misrepresented. None of that intel made it out either.

It must have taken weeks to clean all real intel out of the
WikiLeaks. I know how many man hours the ISI put into reviewing the documents.
If you have not read the analysis by BG Asif Haroon Raja, I suggest you do so.

It is reality based.

I leak enough crap, real stuff. Anymore and I am going to be
shut down. I walk a very fine line here. The idea is to help, not harm. You
might want to ask someone in Israel what they did with the 2 billion dollar SBLC
that Senator's McCain and Lieberman took to Tel Aviv from Islamabad a few months
ago.

This was a negotiable instrument physically carried in
violation of UN money laundering restrictions. The SWIFT system could not be
used.

Think about what it takes to move $65 billion around and how
it seems to leave no trail.

We could go further, with discussions of how many people held
in prisons in Pakistan and Afghanistan have proven to be other than identified
or how many died in custody.

We could talk about narcotics on rendition flights.

I suggest you not blame Engdahl. His article was simply
based on mine. Mine was based on reality. My audience, to a large extent, is
Pentagon based and people in the intelligence community. I am hoping to
embarrass them.

Reaching the public seems to be a waste of time. Bibi
reminds us how unreliable they are.

Shamir replied: Dear Gordon,
how about real-time experiment? You upload to Wikileaks secure server the real
stuff you do not feel you can use under your own name; tell me you did; if it
would not appear I’ll ask Mr Assange why it did not appear. Fair?